"I got a gatehouse to run. Stew to cook. On me own." Mrs. Gringe looked pointedly at both Lucy and Gringe who, to his discomfort, now seemed to be included in Lucy's wrong-doings. He stepped in hastily.
"Come, come, dear. Lucy's all grown up now. She got better things to do than live with her old mum and dad - "
"Old?" said his wife indignantly.
"Well, I didn't mean - "
"No wonder I look old. All that worry. Ever since she was fourteen she's bin running after that Heap boy. Sneaking out with him, even trying to marry him, for goodness' sake, and getting us into terrible trouble with them Custodians. And after all that we take her back out of the goodness of our hearts and what does she do? She runs off again! And never a word. Not a word . . ." Mrs. Gringe got out a stew-stained handkerchief and began noisily blowing her nose into it.
Lucy hadn't expected it to be this bad. She glanced at her father.
Say sorry, he mouthed.
"Um . . . Mum," Lucy ventured.
"What?" came her muffled voice.
"I . . . I'm sorry."
Mrs. Gringe looked up. "Are you?" She seemed surprised.
"Yes. I am."
"Oh." Mrs. Gringe blew her nose loudly.
"Look, Mum, Dad. The thing is, me and Simon, we want to get married."
"I'd 'ave thought you'd already done that," her mother sniffed accusingly.
Lucy shook her head. "No. After I ran away to find Simon - and I did find him" - (Lucy refrained from adding "so there," as she would have done not so long ago) - "well, after I found him I realized that I wanted us to be married properly. I want a white wedding - "
"White wedding? Huh!" said Mrs. Gringe.
"Yes, Mum, that's what I want. And I want you and Dad to be there. And Simon's Mum and Dad too. And I want you to be happy about it."
"Happy!" Mrs. Gringe exclaimed bitterly.
"Mum . . . please, listen. I've come back to ask if you and Dad will come to our wedding."
Her mother sat for a while digesting this as Lucy and Gringe looked on anxiously. "You really are inviting us to your wedding?" she asked.
"Yes, Mum." Lucy pulled a crumpled card edged with white ribbon from her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Gringe, who squinted at it suspiciously. Suddenly she leaped to her feet and flung her arms around Lucy. "My baby," she cried. "You're getting married." She looked at Gringe. "I'll need a new hat," she said.
There was a sudden sound of thudding boots on the steps leading to the room and the bridge boy burst in. "Whatddyou charge an 'orse?" he demanded.
Gringe looked annoyed. "You know what to charge. I left you the list. Horse and rider: one silver penny. Now go an' get the money before they stop hangin' around waitin' for an idiot like you to ask stupid questions."
"But what if it's just an 'orse?" the bridge boy persisted.
"What, a runaway horse?"
The bridge boy nodded.
"Charge the horse whatever it's got in its wallet," said Gringe, raising his eyes to heaven. "Or you can hang on to the 'orse and charge the owner when 'e catches up with it. What do you think?"
"Dunno," said the bridge boy. "That's why I come and asked."
Gringe heaved a heavy sigh. "I better go an' sort this," he said, getting to his feet.
"I'll give you a hand, Dad," said Lucy, not wanting to be left alone with her mother.
Gringe smiled. "That's me girl," he said.
Gringe and Lucy found a large black horse tied up to a ring in the gatehouse wall. The horse looked at Lucy, and Lucy looked at the horse.
"Thunder!" Lucy gasped.
"Nah," said Gringe, looking up at the clouds. "Looks more like snow to me."
"No, Dad," said Lucy, stroking the horse's mane, "the horse - it's Thunder. Simon's horse."
"Ah. So that's how you got here."
"No, Dad. I didn't come on the horse. I took the Port barge."
"Well, that's good. I were a bit worried. He's got no saddle or anything. Not safe riding like that."
Lucy looked puzzled. She stroked Thunder's muzzle and the horse pushed his nose into her shoulder. "Hello, Thunder," she said. "What are you doing here?"
Thunder looked at her. There was an expression deep in the horse's eyes that Lucy wished she understood. Simon would know, she thought. He and Thunder always knew what each other were thinking. Simon and Thunder . . . suddenly Lucy knew. "Simon! Something's happened to Simon. Thunder's come to tell me!"
Gringe looked concerned. Not more trouble, he thought. Mrs. Gringe was right. Ever since Lucy had met the Heap boy something was always going wrong. He looked at his daughter's worried expression and, not for the first time, he wished she had met a nice, straightforward Castle boy all those years ago.
"Lucy, love," he said gently. "It might not even be Thunder. There're a lot of black horses about. And even if it is 'im, well, it don't mean anything bad. In fact, it's a stroke a luck. The horse got loose, it's come all the way through the Farmlands and no one's pinched it - which is a miracle - it's found its way into the Castle and now it's found you." Gringe wanted so much to make it all right for Lucy. He smiled encouragingly. "Look, love. We'll find 'im a saddle and all that kind of horse stuff and you can ride 'im back to the Port. Better than that smelly old barge any day."
Lucy smiled uncertainly. She wanted everything to be all right too.
Lucy led a reluctant Thunder around to the gatehouse stable. When she left, after giving him fresh hay and water and covering him with a warm horse blanket, Thunder tried to follow her out. Lucy quickly closed the bottom half of the stable door. Thunder stuck his great head out of the open top door and looked reproachfully at her.
"Oh, Thunder, tell me Simon's all right. Please," she whispered.
But Thunder was saying nothing.
A few minutes later Mrs. Gringe came down to check on the stew. She was just in time to see Lucy, ribbons flying, racing off into the warren of houses that backed up to the Castle walls. Convinced that Lucy was running away again, Mrs. Gringe stomped over to the nearest stew pot and poked angrily at it. She was, however, pleased to see that the mouse had incorporated nicely into the brown sludge.
Lucy was not running away. She was heading for the steps up to the path that ran along the top of the Castle walls and would take her to the East Gate Lookout Tower - the headquarters of the Message Rat Service, run by Stanley, his four ratlets (now fully grown) and their assorted friends and hangers-on.
As Lucy strode along the walls, she composed a variety of messages to Simon. By the time she breathlessly pushed open the little door of the East Gate Lookout Tower and stepped into the Message Rat Office, she had decided on something short and simple (and also cheap): Thunder here. Are you all right? Send return message. Lu xxxxxx
Half an hour later, Stanley had just caught the mid-morning Port barge. He was unsure whether to be flattered or annoyed that Lucy had insisted that she trusted no rat but him to take the message. After half an hour spent hiding out in a fish basket, trying to avoid the barge cat, Stanley decided he was most definitely annoyed. He was going all the way to the Port just to deliver a weather bulletin. Added to that, he had just realized who the recipient of the message was - Simon Heap was one of the Heap Wizarding family. And Stanley was of the same mind as Mrs. Gringe on this one: Heap Wizards were bad news.
Chapter 6 Choice
While Gringe was searching for "horse stuff," Septimus was, as Marcia put it, in conference. He was in Marcia's sitting room, sitting on a small stool beside the fire, with his blue and gold leather-bound Apprentice Diary on his knees. It was open at the page that read "Darke Week."
Marcia had been dreading the Darke Week for some time. Even though she knew that the most powerful Magyk - which Septimus would be using in the next stage of his Apprenticeship - needed a personal connection with the Darke, it frightened her. Some ExtraOrdinary Wizards were perfectly at ease with the Darke. They enjoyed playing with the delicate balance between Darke and Magyk, adjusting it as a skilled mechanic would a finely tuned engine and, in the process, getting the last ounce of power from their Magyk. Marcia, however, preferred to use as small an amount of Darke Magyk as possible, relying more on her personal Magykal power - some purists might have called her an unbalanced practitioner of Magyk (although not to her face). It was, however, true that the most powerful Wizards were those in perfect balance - and this was what the Darke Week was all about. It was the time when the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice acquired personal experience of the Darke that would enable him or her to move toward a Magykal skill that was in harmony with everything - even the Darke.